power couple

A 1925 book described the pairing of Jack Tanner and Ann Whitfield in George Bernard Shaw’s play, Man and Superman, as a “super-couple fit to propagate a race of their kind.” Nearly 50 years later, New York Affairs magazine used supercouple to describe a kind of wealthy, posh couple who might adopt a child, maintaining the term’s sense of social status but dropping the earlier connotation of eugenics.

Power couple began to supplement and eventually supplant supercouple in the mid 1980s. One of its first uses in print came in 1983, describing Bob and Elizabeth Dole, then US Senator and Secretary of Education, respectively. A number of other publications called the Doles a power couple in 1984 and 1985, including U.S. News, The New York Times, and Cosmopolitan. Power, here, refers to the great influence the duo had. The Doles wielded political power, but power couple soon extended to other, non-politician pairs. In 1987, Cosmopolitan called two married Olympic cyclists a power couple, comparing them to the Doles and Madonna and Sean Penn, then recently married. The same year, Ebony described Ahmad Rashad, a sports broadcaster and former football player, and Phylicia Rashad, best known for playing Clair Huxtable on The Cosby Show, as “TV’s super couple.”

In a 1998 article on Paul and Linda McCartney, the New Statesmen proclaimed the era was in “an age of the power couple.” Management Today followed suit in a 1999 article about power couples in the business world. Michael Lind’s 1996 novel Powertown features a character daydreaming about being in a political power couple, suggesting that the power couple was becoming a widespread aspiration. The New Republic again declared it “age of the power couple” in 2015, pointing to Bill and Hillary Clinton. Indeed, Google showed searches for power couple jumped in 2015, likely due to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. Several news articles from 2015 and 2016 also commented on the Clintons’ power couple status.

In 2015, a reality show, Power Couple, debuted, with versions aired in Israel, India, and Brazil. The show features various unusual and hilarious competitions between celebrity couples to “test” their love and trust. As the term matured, “regular people” started think of their relationships in terms of power couple. Lighthearted articles on dating and relationship-themed websites listed the signs that mark a power couple, including never having awkward moments and having survived major challenges together. These uses mark a shift in power couple, from the marriage of two, big-hitting public figures to a partnership involving commitment without sacrificing each person’s independence. This shift in the term may have been propelled by the increasing empowerment of women not to sacrifice their careers and ambitions to be housewives or stay-at-home moms.